HPDM preslash. Draco wants only the best in magical snakes for his son, and that means turning to serpent-breeder Harry Potter. Harry, who thought he had settled his grudges with Malfoy long ago, is startled by the way he responds. COMPLETE.

Summary: When
Draco Malfoy wants a magical snake for his son, he turns to the best
in the magical world—serpent-breeder Harry Potter. Harry, who
thought that all his past grudges had been settled, is startled by
the way he responds to Malfoy. For many reasons.

Author's Notes:
Beta-ed by Linda, a good friend of mine, who is willing to put up
with my love of Harry Potter in return for the chance to be savage
about grammar and spelling.

A Sound Like
Serpents Singing

Harry tapped his
finger against the glass. It was the best way to create the faint
vibrations that Isla required to realize there was a human nearby to
respond to.

Isla turned her head.
Harry smiled, the way he did every time he looked at her. Isla was
half Ashwinder and half scarlet king snake, and it had taken Harry
forever to figure out how to arrange that mating and then make sure
that the hatchling simply didn't burn itself up in its egg. But he
had succeeded, and Isla was magnificent, with the bold black and red
coloring of a king snake that burned constantly at the edges with
tiny flames. Here and there, white bands ran between the red and the
black, and those stripes seared with a dazzling intensity that
Harry found hard to look at.

She was intelligent,
too, and, at the moment, ready to lay a clutch of eggs from her
mating with an Ashwinder. Harry needed to transfer her from one cage
to another. He held his hand down into the cage. Ready? he
said in Parseltongue.

How long will this
journey last? Isla asked without moving. Her tongue lashed out
once, and she gave Harry's hand a critical glance, as though she
was judging its fitness to be her transport.

From one side of
the room to the other. Harry moved aside so that she could see
through the glass and across the breeding chamber to the new cage she
would inhabit. It had bars that smoked softly and a nest of phoenix
feathers that Harry had paid dearly for. As interesting as Isla's
children would be, though, he knew that he could afford them. The
place that you've often stared at. Wouldn't you like to go there?

Isla's tail twitched
and shuddered. Then she curled herself around his hand slowly. Harry
sighed in relief. He had quickly discovered that although intelligent
snakes made more interesting companions, they were also more
temperamental, and could refuse to do important things for days
because something in their immediate environment had displeased them.
In Isla's case, she usually liked bare skin, and the glove Harry
wore to defend his skin against her flames might have displeased her.

Harry carried her
lightly and quickly past the other cages, perches, and platforms
where snakes slumbered or twined in dances or curled about eggs or
played with the balls and bells that Harry had purchased for them.
Tongues lashed out to follow them, and more than one hissed a
greeting. Harry responded to those who talked and smiled indulgently
at those who didn't. They were mostly pregnant live-bearers
concerned about their young, or snakes involved in puzzle-play that
had baffled them for weeks, or, in the case of Gregor, the Alpine
serpent with dazzling green and white scales, jealous because Harry
was handling another snake. In Gregor's opinion, Harry existed to
tend to Gregor.

Harry set Isla into
the new cage and waited patiently until she unwound herself from his
wrist and began to crawl across the bedding. Her tongue flickered out
more than once, testing the new currents of scent. She kept her tail
linked around Harry's arm until the last moment. Harry didn't
mind. He would rather have a snake like Isla take her time and be
satisfied with everything than go to the trouble of rearranging the
cage for a fifth time.

It will do? He
waited to ask until he was sure that she had approved of the phoenix
feathers, because she coiled herself up in them and laid her nose
along her flank. The strange lumps the eggs waiting inside her made
looked less strange with her head beside them.

It will do, Isla
said with imperious authority. Now fetch me a firefly.

Harry chuckled and
turned away to the front of the shop, where he kept his large cases
of mice, rats, insects, and sometimes birds to feed the snakes with.
He had once believed he would do anything to get rid of his ability
to speak Parseltongue. In fact, he had been sure at first that the
ability had gone with Voldemort, and that he would never hear a snake
talk to him in "English" again.

But then he had found
a young adder that someone had sliced the tail from who needed his
help, who in fact had no qualms about crawling right up to him
demanding his help and threatening consequences from his fangs
if that aid was inadequate. At the same time, Harry's studying
Potions to enter the Auror program had stalled on what he thought was
the most fascinating part of it, the use of ingredients that were
harvested from magical snakes.

And here he was ten
years of studying and experimenting and speaking Parseltongue later:
owner of a shop that specialized in magical snakes which could become
intelligent companions to humans or who didn't mind giving over
scales, shed skins, infertile eggs, fangs, or venom when they knew
that Harry would use the money from the sale of those ingredients to
buy them more food and bedding and toys. Harry had been unsure he
would be able to compete with the apothecaries at first, because he
refused to butcher whole snakes and sell them.

It
had turned out, though, that there were lots of potions brewers
pleased that now they didn't have to scramble through deadfalls and
ravines after venomous serpents who might bite them or slip away in
the end. And there were some people like Hermione who preferred to
purchase from shopkeepers who treated their snakes humanely. So Harry
made quite a nice little living.

And the snakes got fed
and were kept warm and pampered all their lives. So far, Harry had
met only three who preferred wild living. Snakes, like cats, could
see the benefit of an indoor, guaranteed existence.

Harry cheated
shamelessly by using his wand to Summon one of the fireflies swarming
in the cage on the table near the window instead of reaching in and
capturing it. He had been reluctant to learn from snakes in school,
but not since.

He was still laughing
internally at his own joke when he turned around and saw Draco Malfoy
standing in the door of his shop.

Harry reached back to
catch himself on the edge of the table that held the cage, the shock
was so great. He stared blankly at Malfoy for long moments. He hadn't
seen him in ten years, unless you counted glimpsing him on shopping
trips into Diagon Alley and seeing his picture in the paper
occasionally. Harry would have said he was the last person Malfoy's
path would ever have reason to cross again.

Here he was, though,
as defiantly real as the adder all those years ago.

Malfoy had long hair,
hanging nearly to his shoulders and held back with a slender silver
band. Where the band crossed the center of his forehead rested a
glowing, triangular gem, diamond-colored but so pale and watery Harry
knew it couldn't be one. His robes were conservative in cut—Harry
had learned to recognize such things from his customers—but
dazzling white, so that he would still stand out in a crowd. His eyes
were sharp and clear grey, which Harry didn't understand. The last
thing he knew, Malfoy had been blinded by Rabastan Lestrange before
they managed to haul him away to Azkaban, and no efforts of the
Healers at St. Mungo's could reverse the blinding.

Harry cleared his
throat, but that didn't cause any flicker of the eyes. It seemed as
though Malfoy was looking at him and had always been looking at him.
He raised a sarcastic eyebrow, in fact, and murmured, "Do you have
some objection to my presence in your shop, Potter?"

"That depends,"
Harry said, annoyance winning out over his surprise and the impulse
to ignore Malfoy. "Have you come to break cages and release my
serpents in the name of Slytherin solidarity?"

Malfoy's laughter
was an odd sound, full and deep. Harry paused to allow it to echo
around the shop, and watched his steps carefully as he walked in.
Malfoy avoided the tables as if he knew exactly where they were and
came up uncomfortably close to Harry. Harry lifted his chin and his
own brows, and waited.

"You haven't
changed," Malfoy said.

"Ah." Harry drew
out the vowel until he saw Malfoy's forehead wrinkle. "I knew you
would say something like that." Without explaining what he meant,
he changed the subject. Why should Malfoy be allowed to intimidate
him or disappoint him because it was obvious that he still thought of
Harry as a schoolboy? "Are you here for a snake for yourself or
someone else?"

"Someone else."
Malfoy leaned an elbow on a table. Harry watched out of the corner of
his eye as he started towards the back room to give the firefly to
Isla, but no, Malfoy had chosen a table that he couldn't knock over
even if he threw his full weight against it. Harry's respect for
his old rival rose reluctantly. At least he didn't treat other
people and objects the way Harry had thought he would when he first
heard of Malfoy's blindness, as if they were deliberately trying to
injure him if they didn't accommodate him. "My son, Scorpius."

Harry had heard worse
names in his years of serving pure-blood customers, which he was
grateful for; it was the only thing that kept him from snorting.
"Yes, I knew you had a son," he said. "How old is he now, and
what kind of snake did you want?"

"Scorpius is eight,
and I want a snake that can be a companion." Malfoy pitched his
voice lower. Harry knew that he was doing it on purpose. Watching
snakes had taught him how to differentiate between a deliberate
change and one that was accidental. It helped that the snakes were
mostly quick to tell him when they were angry or hungry or simply
playful. "I wouldn't have come here if I didn't know that you
breed the best magical companions."

Harry mentally rolled
his eyes, and then decided that he might as well do it physically. It
wasn't like Malfoy would see him, whatever adaptation he might have
that made it easy for him to move around. "Yes, I know," he said,
and savored the puzzled expression on Malfoy's face when he turned
around. "But I need to know more about Scorpius. Most of my snakes
that are bred to be companions are meant to be unique to the people
who own them."

"Everything about
Scorpius is unique."

Harry paused. That was
the first sign of something real and human in Malfoy that he'd
noted so far: the way his face softened and his fingers curled around
the edge of the table. He might stroke his son's hair that way,
Harry thought.

"Well, that's good
to know," Harry said, and hoped that Malfoy could hear the smile in
his voice. "But it doesn't tell me much in the way of specifics.
Why not bring Scorpius into the shop so that I can get to know his
personality and fit the snake to him?"

Malfoy gave him a
single sharp glance into which a world's worth of exasperation
seemed to have concentrated itself. "I would have brought him with
me today if I wanted to, Potter," he said. "The snake is a
birthday gift, and a surprise."

Harry sucked the
inside of his cheek. He didn't like working blind—

He glanced
automatically at Malfoy, and was glad that he had never picked up the
habit of voicing his thoughts aloud by mistake.

He didn't like
working without knowledge of the person he was supposed to
breed for. On the other hand, he would appreciate the challenge, and
he'd still had more successes than misses.

"All right," he
said at last. "And do you want a snake capable of protecting him or
not? And if you want a protector, do you prefer a constrictor or a
poisoner?"

Malfoy straightened,
his hair swinging violently just above his shoulders. "I do not
want a poisonous snake around my son."

Harry glared at him,
then remembered it had no effect. "This snake would be for
Scorpius," he explained. "That means that it would never bite
him, because it would recognize him as its friend. On the other hand,
some of the people I've provided snakes to in the past have wanted
companions that could bite their enemies."

Malfoy's eyelids
drooped a little over those brilliant eyes, and he stood considering
the matter in absolute silence. Harry waited for him to say
something, as patiently as he could. After all, he could hardly start
breeding before he knew what the specifics were.

No, wait. It wasn't
absolute silence after all. Harry turned his head, thinking that
perhaps Hayley, his most ambitious rattler, had climbed out of her
cage again and gone exploring.

Then he realized the
sound was too shrill and faint to be Hayley's rattle. In fact, it
regularly rose to a pitch that Harry suspected he couldn't make
out, then wavered back into the lower depths of noise. It was sweet,
though. It reminded Harry of the singing snakes that he had bred for
a few years before he realized that they would never be in good
health and it was better not to force them to mate.

This singing was not
tormented, however. It was beautiful and free and full, and made
Harry take a step closer to Malfoy, hardly realizing what he was
doing.

"I want a snake who
can teach Scorpius," Malfoy whispered. "He needs that. He needs
someone who can be a true friend, chide him for his mistakes and
praise him when he does well. He needs someone who is physically
smaller than he is, so that he doesn't feel threatened, but he
might despise a snake that's too small." He turned his head
towards Harry, once again unerringly locating his face even though
Harry had moved. "He's been taught to despise weakness like every
other Malfoy."

"I'm talking about
the kind of snake my son will like," Malfoy said, his voice even,
"not the type that you might prefer to breed."

Harry took a deep
breath and nodded, chagrined with himself for struggling against a
client. Most of the time, he managed to persuade them when they were
wrong. There was no reason to act like they were still in school even
if Malfoy thought they were. "All right. Any particular preference
for color?"

Malfoy froze, then
sneered at him. He tapped his eyelids. "You think I care about that
anymore, Potter?"

"The snake is for
Scorpius," Harry said, "who might care." He found it easier to
hold onto his temper when it seemed that Malfoy was losing his.
"Besides, you haven't always been blind, and I don't know how
complete the blindness is. Maybe you can still distinguish colors or
lights." That would explain the ease with which Malfoy moved,
though not the singing sound.

Malfoy snorted and
gave a short nod, though Harry wasn't sure what he was
acknowledging or accepting. "All right. Scorpius favors green—"

"And silver,"
Harry interrupted. "Of course he does."

Malfoy gave Harry a
long, slow look, which was effective even if Harry knew that those
grey eyes couldn't see him. "And red," he finished. "He likes
cheerful colors."

Harry winced and
nodded, then remembered and said, "Sorry. All right, a large snake
in red and green. An intelligent snake, to be a companion."

"It would be best if
it could talk," Malfoy continued.

Harry blinked, then
said, "I didn't know that your son was a Parselmouth."

That got him another
look, though this one was more impatient than the last. "He is
not," Malfoy said. "I was envisioning a snake that could speak
easily with Scorpius in English. The private language that you
use to communicate with snakes would be of no use to him. I want
everything for my son."

"If I can ask,"
Harry said, "if speech is so important, why did you settle on a
snake for Scorpius? Why not something like a Jarvey, or a parrot?"

"Are you saying that
you can't breed a snake that talks?" Malfoy took a step towards
him, eyes wide and—delighted? Harry thought that was a weird
expression when Malfoy had specifically sought out his shop to find a
snake that would suit his purposes, but then, Malfoy probably thought
about and experienced weird things all the time.

"I'm saying that I
never have, because it's not something that anyone else has
demanded," Harry snapped.

Now, though, he was
wondering how he would go about it. And wondering always produced new
thoughts in his head. It was the first step towards the fulfillment
of the plans that he was wondering about, after all.

Would growing vocal
cords be the best solution? Perhaps not, when most snakes had nothing
like them. On the other hand, snakes could feel and respond to the
vibrations of sound through the earth, and what was sound at heart
but vibration? Harry could think of some snakes, including many in
Isla's lineage, that were extraordinarily sensitive to vibrations.
It was one reason he usually got her attention when she was sleeping
or contemplating with a finger rather than with Parseltongue.

And Isla was ready to
lay. And the best time to experiment with young snakes was in the
egg.

"I think I can do
it," he muttered.

"Good."

Harry blinked and
glanced up. He had forgotten that Malfoy was there, consumed in
thoughts of the snake to come. Malfoy took his elbow off the table
and straightened. He reached down to his belt and plucked out a heavy
bag that he tossed at Harry. Harry caught it and heard the clink of
Galleons.

"Take that for an
initial payment," Malfoy said. "Depending on how well you manage
to fulfill my request, there may be more where that comes from."

Insulted, Harry tossed
the bag back at him. Malfoy stuck out a hand for it and caught it.
Harry wondered if that was because of the whiffle it made as
it flew through the air, or because of that sweet sound. The sweet
sound had to have something to do with the way Malfoy could
react so well. "You don't need to pay me until I manage to come
up with a result," Harry said. "I think I can do this, but it's
not a guarantee."

Malfoy smiled, for
some reason. "You have your own pride," he said.

"Yes, of course."
Harry shook his head. "Owl me with anything else that you think is
important for me to know. I want to fit the snake to Scorpius, but
it's rather difficult when he isn't here in front of me." With
that final jab, he turned away. He would need to secure one of Isla's
eggs as soon as possible so that he could begin to experiment, and
that meant persuading a difficult and temperamental Isla. At least
snakes usually weren't that close to their offspring, so they
usually agreed to let Harry do what he wanted with the eggs.

"Thank you."

Harry glanced back. He
would have thought Malfoy would have already walked out of the shop,
but instead he stood there, staring expectantly at—or
towards—Harry, waiting for a response. Harry nodded back. "You're
welcome," he said. He hesitated, then softened his voice. Too much
coldness, and Malfoy would think he had been right about Harry not
changing. "Thanks for the challenge."

Malfoy tilted his head
to the side, not quite a nod, as if those had been the words that he
was waiting to hear, and strode out of the shop.

Harry watched him go,
listening still. There was no trace of the sweet noise now, and no
answers to his questions about it.

But that hardly
mattered, Harry told himself. He would probably hear the noise again,
and if he saw Malfoy enough times, then he might gain the comfort
needed to ask such an intimate question.

Right now, he would
have to negotiate with Isla, and then with Gregor, whose help Harry
would need with the young serpent that hatched from the egg. Smiling
slightly, and numbering the mice he could afford to spare Isla, Harry
stepped back into his snake room.

In the end, it took
more time than he had expected, because two-headed Cryer, a
blue-green snake with Runespoor heritage, had climbed up into the
rafters and couldn't figure out how to get back down, and Harry had
to rescue her before he could talk to Isla.

*

What should we do
first? Harry asked, cocking his head to the side and studying the
colors of the scales pressed against the shell of the egg. He had
begun enchanting Isla's child, and now that it—he, Harry
thought—was nearly ready to hatch, it was the time to work delicate
and precise magic.

Scratch my scales,
Gregor said, and turned his head to the side so that Harry could
get at the delicate place under his chin.

Harry did it as
gravely as he would have tried a new spell. For Gregor, his requests
were to be treated as seriously as his magical advice.

Gregor sighed, a long,
rolling, sibilant sound that went on until other snakes in the back
room began to complain. Then he lifted his head and nudged his nose
around the edges of the egg. Harry stepped back and watched him
patiently, ready to do whatever he said.

Gregor was the most
intelligent snake he had ever hatched, and it had been an entirely
mistaken mating. Harry had meant to pair Gregor's parents with
others, but at that time he still wasn't good at determining the
sex of most snakes and he had thought both Ash and Mountainside were
female. Mountainside's eggs a month later had been a surprise.

Physically, Gregor was
pure Alpine serpent, a magical breed that lived in the Italian
mountains and was able to turn themselves into stones or moss when a
human approached. His scales, white streaked with lightning flashes
of pale green, were handsome enough that Harry had no wish to alter
their color. But he also possessed the ability to see magic, in a way
that Harry could barely grasp even after he'd listened to multiple
Parseltongue explanations, and he could give Harry advice on how to
arrange it.

None of his siblings
had the same ability, and though Harry had bred Ash and Mountainside
again with their consent, Gregor didn't have any rivals among the
further clutches. Harry had decided to enjoy what he had while he had
it. Alpine serpents often lived twenty years or more, and Gregor was
only seven.

Sometimes, it does
feel like it's been longer, living with him, Harry thought with
a mixture of exasperation and affection as he watched Gregor twine
his body around the egg and rub the shell with the spot on his chin
that Harry had just touched. He would never say such a thing aloud,
of course. Gregor was as proud and insecure as Malfoy had been in
school, and wouldn't forgive him for months.

Malfoy.

The oddest things kept
bringing Malfoy back to Harry's mind, he thought as he stepped back
and examined the egg from the side. A small ripple of red light was
running over the shell, just as it should be. Harry smiled
reluctantly and reached out so that Gregor could wrap around his
fingers. Gregor did it with a haughty lash of his tail and then
turned so that he, too, could examine the egg from a different angle,
in this case from the height of Harry's shoulder.

He could hear a snake
hissing now, Harry thought as he gathered up the egg and carried it
over to the tank of specially enchanted water that he'd prepared.
It bubbled and churned with waves of salt and waves of heat, and
Harry placed the egg at the surface and watched as it began to tumble
over and over.

He could hear a snake,
and it would remind him of the sweet singing sound he'd heard as he
stood near Malfoy—a sound Harry had decided must be some
kind of special adaptation to help him around being blind. Or he
could look at the pale, chiseled statue that the sculptor's shop
across the street had had for sale for two years and see the living
duplicate of that face in his memory.

Malfoy had been
nowhere in Harry's life. He had become everywhere.

"Is this a bad
time?" The voice he had been imagining spoke from behind him. "No
one answered my knock, and I thought you might be with a customer."
Tones of disbelief striated his voice, Harry thought as he
straightened up and turned around, and he knew why. No matter what
Malfoy said, he wouldn't be able to really believe that any other
customer could mean as much to Harry as he did.

And maybe he's
right about that. Harry entertained either customers who didn't
affect him much, buyers for Potions ingredients who all spoke the
same tiresome language and tried to negotiate new bargains the snakes
weren't willing to make, or friends whose beloved faces were always
part of his experience. Malfoy was something new.

Like me, Gregor
said, leaning around Harry's neck for a good look at Malfoy.

Another disconcerting
thing about Gregor: sometimes he read Harry's thoughts. Harry tried
to shake off the odd feeling as he stretched out one hand. Malfoy
clasped it while fixing those keen sightless eyes on Harry's face.

"You don't need to
jump," Malfoy said in a low laughing voice. Harry felt sure the
laughter was derisive, though, given what he said next. "Blindness
isn't catching."

"Especially not your
kind of blindness," Harry said calmly, accepting and acknowledging
his own stupidity. He stroked the back of Gregor's neck so that he
wouldn't get jealous and nodded to Malfoy. "Do you have new
specifications for Scorpius's snake? I'm just putting the egg in
the enchanted water, and there's still a bit of time to change
things if you want to."

Malfoy shook his head
slowly, as if he wanted to measure how little air he could disturb
with the motion. "I came simply to make sure that the creation of
the snake is going well," he murmured, and leaned over the tank of
water. Harry stepped back and let him examine the bobbing egg.
Nothing Malfoy did could harm it unless he actually cast a spell on
it, and Harry doubted he was stupid enough to do that. "And here I
find myself baffled," Malfoy added, his voice a deep chuckle that
stirred nerves Harry had forgotten he had, "because of course I
cannot tell what the egg indicates."

Harry stepped up close
to him, partially because Gregor was hissing in agitation about
wanting to examine Malfoy and partially because Harry wanted to feel
the warmth that radiated from him. Why not? He could do as he liked
in a case like this. Malfoy wasn't an enemy now, and Harry didn't
intend to hurt him. "The snake is developing quickly. I should have
him hatched out in a week. Then, of course, I'll need to do some
more work to make sure that he has the qualities you want."

"The intelligence?"
Malfoy reached out as if he intended to trail a hand through the
water. Harry caught his wrist. The ambient human magic that Malfoy
carried really might disturb the currents in the tank, and
Harry didn't want that to happen. Malfoy tilted his head and gave
him half a warm smile. "And the ability to speak?" he went on, as
though Harry's hand were an insect that had alighted on him. He
stood still under the touch, though, still enough that Harry heard
the singing noise again.

Harry was the one who
caught his breath and licked his lips, and had to tell himself a
moment later that he was being ridiculous. He moved back from Malfoy
and tried to speak neutrally. "I have magic at work on the egg that
I think will produce that result. Certainly Scorpius's snake
will be intelligent. But how well it can speak…I won't know that
until it hatches."

"Explain to me how
you went about starting to get human speech out of a snake." Malfoy
turned towards him and leaned a hip on the table that held the tank
of water, the same way he had leaned on the table last time. Harry
wondered if that was a gesture he had always favored or only used
since his blindness. It made him look more relaxed than Harry had
seen him in school, that was for certain. "I know a few facts about
snakes, but nothing about the magical theory that applies to them."

"I'm lucky in many
ways," Harry said, moving back to put some distance between him and
Malfoy. His reactions would be appropriate in private, but not in a
conversation with a client. "I can speak with snakes, so I can
persuade them to use their own magic and cooperate in the process of
breeding instead of resisting it."

Malfoy frowned. Harry
sighed, trying to keep it soundless. Even with that expression on his
face, the git looked attractive. "I was under the impression that
snakes, except for a few magical breeds, were not very intelligent,"
Malfoy said. "How can they oppose the breeding program that you've
set up for them?"

Gregor hissed and
wound himself around Harry's neck as if he was a constrictor. I
don't like him, he said clearly in Parseltongue. He's
speaking the way that people do when they want to disparage us. Send
him away.

Harry tapped Gregor on
the neck and replied, His money, and the money of people like him,
is what keeps you eating. Do you still want me to send him away?

He has a funny
nose, said Gregor, and then curled his own blunt nose into his
coils and lay there as if he could drive Malfoy off with the sheer
force of his sulking.

Harry looked up to
apologize to Malfoy and found himself the focus of a faint,
appreciative smile. Malfoy sighed before he spoke, a low, delicious
sound which made faint shivers run up Harry's spine. "I hadn't
realized that you communicated so intimately with your snakes. It
sounds exotic."

Harry shrugged,
suddenly uncomfortable. His friends were used to it, and he rarely
spoke the snake language in front of clients, some of whom wanted to
accuse him of being a Dark wizard even now. He felt as though someone
had walked into the bathroom and seen him with his pants down. "It's
nothing special. Just a gift I got God knows how. Inherited, maybe.
My family has some connection to the Peverells, and they were
connected to Salazar Slytherin—"

Stop babbling, you
idiot, he told himself forcefully, and shut his mouth with a
small gasp. Malfoy watched him with a quizzical smile. Harry
scratched the nape of his neck and looked away. Even he thinks
it's weird. You know he does.

"How fascinating,"
Malfoy said. His expression was so bland that Harry couldn't tell
whether he was telling the truth or not. "And you feel bad coercing
snakes against their will into a breeding program?" His voice was
bland, too, but Harry thought there were complex emotions under the
surface.

He had no idea what
words would cause Malfoy to approve of him, and no reason to crave
that approval as much as he did. So he shrugged and said, "Yes.
Since I can hear them complaining. And I can negotiate with them, so
why shouldn't I?'

"There are all sorts
of answers to that," Malfoy said.

I knew he
was disparaging us, Gregor said, popping his head around Harry's
neck and hissing at Malfoy. I know the way your muscles tense when
you're confronting someone who doesn't understand.

Harry rolled his
shoulder so that Gregor almost fell off. That would give the
impertinent snake something to deal with. He focused on Malfoy while
Gregor was still dangling half-off his arm and said, "Then give me
one answer."

"That of course you
should listen to them, since they're your livelihood and they could
hurt you if they were annoyed," Malfoy said. "That's the answer
Granger would give you. And probably my wife." He paused, a shadow
sweeping across his face.

"Is she interested
in house-elf rights, too?" Harry asked politely. He would ignore
the shadow unless Malfoy clearly wanted to talk about it. God knew
Harry was tired of people who used every casual reference he made to
pry into his life.

"All right," Harry
said, and ignored Malfoy's incredulous look. What kind of
response did he think he would get from me? Maybe he assumed that I
was so curious I would insist on knowing everything about her. "We
were talking about magical theory that someone could use to get
snakes to talk, or at least you asked about that and I started
rambling and never got back on the topic." He gave a small smile.

It took him long
enough that Harry thought the muscles of his face were frozen, but in
the end, Malfoy smiled back.

Harry touched the side
of the tank where the egg bobbed. "I started thinking that human
speech and Parseltongue are both conduits of magic, used rightly. We
use Latin in our incantations, after all. What makes it special is
the will that we put behind the words when we want to use them to
cast a spell."

"Yes, that's
rather important," Malfoy said dryly.

Harry ignored him, in
part because Gregor was hissing several obscene things and Harry had
to bite his lip to keep from laughing. "And of course," he
continued, "I can speak Parseltongue, proving that human and snake
languages have certain boundaries where they touch. Parseltongue is
an inborn ability, and I can't make Scorpius a Parselmouth. But I
can try to ensure that his snake has a similar inborn gift. In
his case, he's a Humanmouth, I suppose."

"Your names need
work," Malfoy said, but he sounded calmer now, and fascinated. "Why
did you decide to modify the snake while he was in the egg instead of
waiting until he had hatched?"

"Think of how much
easier it is to train a human infant to do something than a human
toddler," Harry said. Malfoy opened his mouth in silent laughter,
and Harry froze a moment, taking in the light that seemed to shine
through his face when he did that. He shivered and spoke on in a
voice he feared was huskier than before, at least if Malfoy's
curious head-tilt was any indication. "Similar differences exist
between a snake in the egg and a hatchling. The earlier I begin, the
easier it is to use magic on him."

"And how soon will
he be ready for Scorpius?" Malfoy's voice was soft and eager now,
and Harry remembered the way he felt when he wanted to give a present
to Rose or Hugo. He found himself smiling in answer.

"It depends on how
much of a companion you want him to be." Harry looked back at the
egg and made a few rapid calculations, thinking of Isla's lineage.
Yes, he thought he could count on some inborn magical ability in the
snake to substitute for lost time. "If you want a very intelligent
companion, you'll need to wait a few months. But a snake who can
talk and is as intelligent as a five-year-old child will need only a
week after he hatches."

Malfoy pondered
openly, leaning his chin on his fist and staring at the tank exactly
as if he could see it. Harry examined his face with a leisurely gaze,
since now he had the chance to do so. The individual features were
pointy and pale. He didn't know where the extreme beauty he seemed
to sense animating them at times came from.

I know why you're
looking at him like that, Gregor said, and curled one coil around
Harry's throat, yanking hard to let him know that he was
displeased. He was even more displeased when Harry patiently
unwound the coil and held him away from his throat. Gregor liked to
pretend that he was a much bigger snake than he was, and hated being
manhandled. You smell of the desire to mate.

Harry had no doubt
that he did, because most snakes saw no need to lie. Gregor was one
of the few Harry had ever met who used truth maliciously, though. He
knew his face was red as he replied, But he wouldn't want to
mate with me. He has a wife and a son. In Parseltongue, he
already knew that that came out as "permanent mate" and
"hatchling who lives with the parents," but he couldn't help
trying to explain the concepts. He knew Gregor could understand them
if he wanted to. But Gregor considered those things too stupid to
spend time believing them.

You still want to
mate. Gregor slithered abruptly down his arm and left the room.
Harry let him go, just relieved that he hadn't decided to plunge
into the water and eat the egg. He'd ruined several experiments
like that before.

"Give me the
months," Malfoy said suddenly, making Harry jump. He'd almost
forgotten the question he'd posed. "I want a snake who can truly
be a companion, a friend, to Scorpius. And rushing the production of
this egg won't help with that." He smiled, looking as satisfied
with himself if he'd been the one to breed Isla and then beg an egg
from her.

Harry didn't care.
That little smirk was ridiculously endearing. "Good," he said.
"That's what I hoped you would say. It should be ready for
Scorpius in four months."

"Good." Malfoy
tilted his head and let his hair slip down his neck, reaching up one
hand to push it absently back. "Have you given him a name yet?"

"No," Harry said.
"I thought I'd let Scorpius do that. Snakes don't care as much
about names as we do, given that they can smell one another."

Malfoy paused as
though Harry had told him that the egg would take longer than
expected. "But you can negotiate with them," he said. "You
treat them like participants in your business and the decisions you
make involving them."

"I do," Harry
admitted. "There's very little else that one can do when one
speaks Parseltongue."

"Then might this
snake get an inferiority complex because you haven't given him a
name when you give the others names?" Malfoy's voice hardened,
and now he sounded as though he thought Harry had set out to offer
him some deliberate insult.

Harry blinked. "I—yes,
sometimes the snakes react that way. Not often," he added, thinking
of the way that Isla hadn't cared while Harry hesitated and hemmed
and hawed about choosing the "perfect" name for her. "But
sometimes."

"And it's more
likely the more intelligent the snake is, yes?" Malfoy leaned
forwards. "I know that I would react badly if everyone
around me had a name and I didn't."

Harry felt his mouth
spasm for a moment, and was just as grateful that Malfoy couldn't
see it. He was remembering the way that Vernon and Petunia had gone
out of their way not to use his name, calling him "freak" or
"boy" instead. Harry had hated the fact that they would call
Dudley by every variation on his name imaginable. "Yeah," he
said, aware that his voice was clipped and Malfoy would probably
notice it, but unable to prevent it. "Yeah, that might happen."

"Well." Malfoy
leaned back and gave him a smile. "Give Scorpius's snake a name.
I trust you will choose one that is not unfitting for a snake in a
Malfoy's possession." He inclined his head to Harry and strolled
out of the shop, avoiding all the obstacles in his way as precisely
as he had done before.

Harry, though, was
left staring after him, his heart thumping powerfully because of
those three little words Malfoy had spoken.

I trust you.

How can you want to
mate with someone who is not here? Gregor hissed in irritation,
and shoved his head under Harry's fingers. Put your hands to use
doing something for once and pet me.

*

Malfoy returned
several times over the next week and months as the snake—whom Harry
had decided to name Orion, after the only constellation that he could
recognize easily—hatched from his egg and began to mature. His
scales were a brilliant patterning of red and green in regular bands
like the ones that had graced Isla's king snake ancestors, and his
eyes were blue-grey. Harry had hoped that would happen, to echo the
eye color he thought Scorpius had probably inherited from his father,
but he hadn't been sure it would.

Malfoy asked technical
questions that clearly proved he had been doing some reading on
serpentine magical theory, or at least research on the snakes that
Harry had sold in the past. Harry had to admit that he was impressed,
and he didn't mind showing that to Malfoy. In fact, his voice
seemed to have acquired more and more propensity for showing emotions
when Malfoy was around, so he couldn't hide it anyway.

Malfoy
would offer a smile now and then in response, and Harry coveted those
smiles the way Isla craved time for herself away from her hatchlings.

He
didn't really understand what was happening. He had admired men
before, and had gone to bed with a few; it was one of the reasons he
was no longer as bitter about his breakup with Ginny as he might have
been. But those men had all been like Oliver Wood, the first one:
athletes, honest and enthusiastic and no more capable of hiding
secrets than the daylight sky was. Harry knew that Malfoy must have
some secrets about him. There were certain topics, notably his wife
and his family's fortunes after the war, that he would go suddenly
cold and silent on, and leave Harry scrambling to apologize for. He
also forbade Harry to offer apologies for offending him, though, so
in the end both of them usually stood around in silence until Malfoy
asked another question about snakes.

So the conversations
went on, while Harry wondered if Malfoy really needed to visit that
many times to assure himself that Scorpius was getting the perfect
snake, and vacillated between thinking that Malfoy didn't trust him
after all and thinking that Malfoy wanted to spend time with him.

Which was plainly
ridiculous, and made Gregor upset, besides.

And then there came
the day that Ron and Hermione were visiting with their children, and
Malfoy decided to visit as well.

*

"Uncle
Harry!"

Harry
laughed and picked up Hugo, spinning him around. Hugo tucked in his
elbows and knees conscientiously; he, and probably Rose, would never
forget the day his flying foot had almost broken open one of the
tanks. Harry blamed himself for that more than anyone else, but Hugo
still referred to it as "the time Uncle Harry swore."

Hugo grinned up at him
as Harry set him down. His bright red hair bristled around his head,
and he had huge brown eyes that ate up most of his face. Right now,
he was staring in some awe at Orion, who coiled around one of the
branches of a perch that Harry had enchanted into a tiny tree. "I've
never seen a snake that bright!" he said. "What's his name?"

Harry turned
expectantly to Orion. Orion flicked his tongue out to catch Hugo's
scent, but said nothing.

Harry held back a sigh
of frustration. He knew that Orion had the magic to talk. He
just never seemed to say anything.

And in a snake who had
been specifically and specially bred so that he would speak in
English, that was worrying.

"His name's
Orion," Harry said at last, when he realized that Hugo was looking
at him for an answer. Harry hadn't told anyone about his little
project, wanting to surprise everyone when and if the experiment
worked, so Hugo didn't know that Orion ought to be able to speak.
"He's part Ashwinder and part king snake and part many other
things."

"Brilliant!" Hugo
said, though Harry thought the word referred more to Orion's
Christmas colors than to Harry's explanation. "Can I pet him?"

Will you let him
touch you? Harry hissed to Orion.

Orion bobbed his head.
He was one of the few snakes Harry had reared who had picked up human
gestures like that. It spoke well for his intelligence, Harry
thought, as he held out his arm so that Orion could coil around it
and slide down, but given how rarely he spoke even in Parseltongue,
Harry was beginning to think something had gone wrong with the
magical theories that he'd used to produce the snake.

There was also the
fact that Orion was aloof, neither taking any of the simple
serpentine pleasure in warm human touch that most of Harry's
friends did, nor accepting it as a tribute to his vanity the way
Gregor did. Harry wondered how much of a companion he would be for
anyone, let alone a child who would want to touch him all the time.

"Brilliant!" Hugo
said again, once he had run the backs of his fingers along the folded
hood about Orion's neck and Orion had watched him without movement.

"Hugo, are you in
here?" Ron's voice shouted from the main part of the shop. Harry
turned to call out a reassurance, grinning. Hugo liked to run from
the Apparition point into Harry's shop while the rest of the family
proceeded more slowly up Diagon Alley. In fact, Harry saw when he
walked out to greet Ron, only his father was here now; Rose and
Hermione had probably been swallowed up by the bookshop.

"Good to see you,
mate." Ron pounded Harry on the back. He was wearing ordinary,
rough-worn robes, since it was a holiday, but he had a bright
alertness in his eyes that marked him as an Auror more effectively
any uniform could. He glanced around at the cages of mice and insects
now and gave a dramatic shiver. "You're not tired of surrounding
yourself with vermin yet?" he teased.

"I've been
considering bringing in elephants to liven the place up," Harry
said, "but then I'd have to breed the snakes to eat them." He
glanced sideways at an empty tank that he'd kept weasels in for a
short time, until he sold the Greater Cobra that ate them. "And, of
course, there's always a profitable sideline to be established in
spiders."

Ron shivered for real
this time. "You'll just have to start visiting Rosewalk if you
bring spiders here," he said firmly. "Because I'm not coming
anywhere near your shop then."

"We're not coming
back to Uncle Harry's shop?" Hugo was sticking his head out from
the back, his face anxious.

Ron smiled at his son.
"Tell Uncle Harry not to breed snakes that eat spiders, or we
won't," he said. Harry rolled his eyes. Ron could somehow
convince Hugo, though not Rose, of his ridiculous threats, and used
them shamelessly at every chance.

Hugo turned towards
Harry and opened his mouth. Harry smiled reassuringly at him, but he
never got the chance to say what he'd planned on because the door
opened and a resonant voice he knew too well after its repeated
appearances in his imagination called out, "Potter!"

Ron clenched his fists
but didn't turn around. His smile had turned wan, though. Harry
sighed and stepped forwards to get between Ron and Malfoy. He hadn't
told his friends about breeding a snake for Malfoy's son because of
the experimental nature of it, but also because he didn't want to
deal with angry exclamations, and he reckoned this was his reward for
it.

"Malfoy," Harry
said with a little nod. Malfoy had already slowed; maybe he'd heard
the echoes of voices and realized that Harry wasn't alone. "Did
you have a question?"

"Several." Malfoy
squinted as if the light in the shop bothered his eyes and leaned
against a table that held rats with that gesture he seemed so fond of
using. "But I wouldn't want to disturb your other customers. Do
carry on." The flap of his hand expressed gracious permission.

Ron had turned around
by then, and was staring at Malfoy with no friendly expression. Harry
coughed, but Ron didn't pay any attention to him. "Finally come
for a friend who crawls on his belly like you do, Malfoy?" he
asked.

"Why, yes," Malfoy
said. "I think one can do little better than associate with snakes.
I'm sure Potter would agree with me." He turned his head and gave
Harry the kind of smile that made Harry want to murder him.

"I didn't mean it
that way, mate." Ron turned to him, squinting at Harry as if he
expected to see him physically wounded by his words. "You know I
didn't, right? I know that you're not really a Dark wizard just
because you speak Parseltongue."

"Is he Dark for
other reasons, then?" Malfoy had the polite tone of someone asking
after Ron's family at a party.

Ron whirled around.
"No, but you are, aren't you?" he asked. "Dark in
reputation even after all these years, so Dark that your wife left
you, and with darkness in front of your eyes."

Malfoy stiffened.
Harry groaned silently as he saw the remorse flit over Ron's face a
moment later. Ron hadn't meant it, but his apologies would do no
good after he had inflicted this damage in the first place.

Harry caught Ron's
eye and mouthed a single word: Leave.

Ron opened his mouth
as if he would defend himself, then sighed and nodded. At least he
had grown up that much in the last decade, Harry thought in
exasperation as he watched Ron take Hugo's hand and haul him out of
the shop. Glancing through the front window, Harry saw him meet
Hermione and Rose in the middle of the street and start explaining.
Hermione's face darkened steadily as she listened, and then she
dealt a resounding slap to the back of Ron's head.

Harry smiled and
turned back to Malfoy. At least he knew that Ron wasn't getting
away with what he'd said completely.

But from the intense
expression on Malfoy's face, Ron's punishment didn't mean much
to him. Harry wouldn't have expected it to do so. He thought for a
moment, then said, "I'm sorry he said that."

"He should be
the one apologizing." Malfoy's voice was thick with something
that might have been suppressed rage.

"Yes, I know,"
Harry said. "But I don't think he will. Or, at least, he couldn't
do it in any gracious way," he added, thinking of some of the ways
that Ron had apologized to people in the past. "He'd make it
sound like you were silly for being offended in the first place."

Malfoy gave himself a
visible shake and then nodded shortly. "And what about you,
Potter?" he asked. "Do you think it was my Dark reputation that
drove my wife away?"

"No," Harry said
quietly. He had to hope that Malfoy's hearing, or magic, or
whatever it was that gave him such faultless knowledge of the world,
would tell him that Harry was telling the truth. "I didn't know
that she'd left you, to be honest. I thought she was still living
in the Manor."

Malfoy straightened
and stood there as if Harry's words had been the equivalent of
Hermione's rap on the head. Then he laughed. His laughter was low
and taunting, but Harry simply waited, looking at him with one
slightly arched eyebrow.

"You do live
immured in your shop," Malfoy said, when he finished laughing. "I
would have thought everyone would have heard about that years ago,
when she proclaimed that I used enough Dark Arts to make her
uncomfortable. There was an Auror investigation that your friend
Weasley was involved in."

"I'm not in the
Aurors," Harry said, with what he hoped was a sufficiently peaceful
tone in his voice. "And even if Ron's job is exciting, the way he
talks about it isn't. I generally try not to listen when he
starts going on."

Malfoy laughed again,
but he sounded more at ease than he had been since Ron first spoke to
him. "Well. She left me. I'm sure you've noticed a reluctance
on my part to mention her name." He gave Harry a mocking smile and
spread his hands slightly, as though inviting him to look for weapons
in his robes. Harry eyed the way his robes clung to his body and
thought about other things that he'd like to look for. "Now, are
you going to throw me out of your shop or accuse me of using Dark
Arts?"

"No," Harry said.
"You would have been stupid to come here if you used them. I have
some snakes that can sense Dark magic and get upset in its presence.
And since I can speak to snakes, I'd notice that. I'm sure that's
something you researched before you ever ventured through the door."

Malfoy finally gave
him a regular smile. "Someone who gives me credit for basic
intelligence, how refreshing," he said, and clapped his hands as
though he wanted to move them past the awkward moment. "I came to
check on Orion."

Harry sighed and led
Malfoy into the back of the shop. Orion was coiled on top of Isla's
cage; he seemed to enjoy his mother's company, and she felt the
same as long as Orion didn't demand too much of her attention.
Harry reached out an arm, and Orion coiled up to his shoulder.

"I don't like the
quality of your silence, Potter," Malfoy said, in a voice that was
almost bright.

Harry turned to face
him. He realized, with a small start, that he wasn't looking
forwards to the disappointment on that pointy face. He wanted to
convince Malfoy and give him what he'd asked for as a matter of
professional pride, but, as Gregor would say, Harry knew that his own
smell indicated more than that. Orion, in fact, flicked out his
tongue towards him and cocked his head as if puzzled.

"He hasn't spoken
yet," Harry said. "He's intelligent, probably the most
intelligent snake I've ever bred, but he doesn't talk in either
English or Parseltongue. I wonder if I went too far when trying to
breed a special snake of your son and bred him without speaking
ability at all. He is the right color, and the right size, but
he may not be everything you wanted."

Malfoy remained still
for some moments, his eyes fixed on Orion. Orion lifted his head and
turned it in Malfoy's direction. Harry held his breath, wondering
if he would react with excitement, since he had described the way
Malfoy looked to Orion several times. Instead, Orion simply dropped
his head to rest on his coils and shifted a few of them so that his
eyes were more or less covered.

In the silence, Harry
heard the noise like snakes singing again. He gave Malfoy a sideways
look and started to ask what it was, but Malfoy spoke before he could
finish the question.

"I can feel the
magic in him from here," Malfoy murmured. He took a step forwards
and brought two fingers down near Orion's tail, stroking. Orion
shifted, but said nothing. Of course not, Harry thought, with
a stifled sigh. "Whatever happened, Potter, I don't think you
failed. Describe to me the procedure you used."

"I can't describe
all of it," Harry said, and looked around for Gregor. He was asleep
on the nest of phoenix feathers, which Isla had abandoned after
laying her eggs, and the way his tail stiffened and shook told Harry
that it wouldn't be worth the bite he would get to disturb him. "I
wasn't the main impetus behind it. But I know that I was
concentrating on loyalty, intelligence, and speech. And a snake that
would be a perfect companion," he added. He watched Orion out of
the corner of his eye, but the snake remained still and silent. Harry
stifled a growl of frustration. A snake who calmly accepted anyone's
touch hadn't been the goal of his breeding program, either. Most of
the people he sold to liked their pets to have a bit of
discrimination. "So far, the only thing I'm sure about is the
intelligence. He hasn't demonstrated any of the other virtues."

Orion shifted in his
sleep, but didn't rear up indignantly the way Harry thought he
would have if he understood English. I wish he would, Harry
thought. That would at least prove to me that he cares about
something.

"What was the
strongest consideration to you?" Malfoy let his hand drop away from
Orion, and rested it on Harry's shoulder instead. Harry caught his
breath. Malfoy didn't seem to notice, but slid his fingers along
Harry's shirt until he encountered skin. Harry half-closed his
eyes, trying to imagine what his warmth and shifting muscle must feel
like to Malfoy, and then snapped them open again as Malfoy went on
speaking. "To breed a perfect companion? To breed a loyal one? To
breed a speaking snake?"

"Definitely the
first," Harry whispered. He knew his voice sounded soft and dazed,
but Malfoy didn't seem disposed to take offense and Harry didn't
think he could help it. The history between him and Malfoy, the fact
that they hadn't touched but only spoken for the past few months,
the curiosity Harry felt about him…those only seemed to make this
moment of mutual exchange and contact more intense. "Oh, yes," he
breathed as Malfoy's fingers slid again, this time towards the bend
of his elbow.

Malfoy nodded
thoughtfully and pulled his hand back. Harry swallowed. His
disappointment was the closest thing he had felt to heartache in
years. "Well, then," Malfoy said, "I'm not shocked that you
have these results. It looks like I'll have to ruin the surprise a
bit early and bring Scorpius in."

Once he managed to
focus on what Malfoy was saying and not on those pale fingers only a
few inches from his arm, Harry felt like an idiot for not seeing it
before. "You don't think he's reacting because his perfect
companion's not around?" he asked.

Malfoy nodded. "If
he's as loyal to Scorpius as you meant to have him, then he has no
reason to feel interest in you or me."

Harry tried to put all
his ruefulness into his voice. "I hope that that doesn't make me
seem utterly stupid."

"Not at all. I
didn't think about the consequences of asking you to create a
perfect companion, either." Malfoy went on from that handsome
admission before Harry could ask him who the expert magical
snake-breeder supposedly was in this room. "Would it be agreeable
to you for me to bring Scorpius by in a day or two?"

"Better make it
two," Harry said. "I have a client coming tomorrow who has
connections to the Wizengamot."

Malfoy sneered
suddenly. Harry blinked, because the sneer had literally appeared out
of nowhere, like a copperhead snake appearing out of the leaves
scattered on a forest floor. "And you don't want your reputation
tainted in their eyes because you deal with tainted clients," he
said in a clipped tone. "I understand."

Harry sighed. "Why
can't you trust me?" The words were probably stupid, he thought
when he saw the way Malfoy looked at him, but he pushed on anyway.
"The reason I don't want you here is that he might insult
you, too, and I think you've already suffered enough insults simply
because you're divorced and blind."

Malfoy remained still
for long moments. Harry had thought his face expressive before, but
now he'd shut his features down the way he had sometimes done in
school, and Harry had no idea what he was feeling. He kept himself
from shifting by reminding himself that this had to be infinitely
more difficult for Malfoy than it was for him.

Then Malfoy murmured,
"I have not had anyone look out for my interests that way in—a
long time. Unless I was paying them."

Harry coughed. Now
that he had what he wanted, some kind of acknowledgment from Malfoy,
he wondered at his own impulse to deny it. "Well, you're paying
me, too," he said. "I don't really have any right to ask for
extra trust from you."

"I haven't paid
you yet." Malfoy seemed to consider that an important
distinction. He reached out and put one hand on Harry's shoulder
again, this time seeming careful to only touch cloth. He stared at
Harry's face, and it didn't matter that his eyes couldn't see.
The stare felt hard anyway, and Harry's heart beat faster and
faster under that gaze.

"Yes," Malfoy said
at last. It was an answer to a question, Harry thought, but so many
unasked questions hovered between them that he wasn't sure which
one. "I will bring Scorpius in two days, and we shall see if Orion
takes to him." He cast an amused glance, or at least one that
looked amused, in Orion's direction. Orion refused to stir.

Malfoy walked towards
the door and paused in the frame without looking over his shoulder.
Harry wondered if that was significant or not, especially given the
weighty pauses in his voice. "And perhaps I shall tell you some
things about myself, Potter, when I return. Or perhaps not."

"Either's fine,"
Harry said. "It should be your choice. I just wanted to make sure
that you knew I wasn't deliberately insulting you."

"I never would have
come here if I suspected that," Malfoy said. "I did do my
research before I chose your shop."

He left before Harry
could point out that he had assumed a deliberate insult anyway when
Harry spoke about the Wizengamot.

But maybe that
mattered less than he thought it did, Harry thought as he stroked
Orion, and wasn't a sign of distrust so much as how complex a man
Malfoy still was: strong in himself, and straining to cope with the
fact that others would inevitably see him as weak.

*

"I really am sorry,
mate," Ron muttered through the fire. He rubbed the back of his
head as if he could still feel the sting where Hermione had slapped
him. "I just saw him, and it's true that we couldn't find
evidence he used Dark Arts, but it sounded as if he did, and
the way he smiled at us during that case when we had to let
him go—"

"You're doing it
again, Ron," Harry said sharply, at the same moment as an inaudible
call came from another room of the house.

Ron sighed and dropped
his head into his hands. "Sorry," he muttered. "Yeah, I'm
sorry. I shouldn't have let my frustration at him take over when we
were in a completely neutral setting."

"No, you shouldn't
have," Harry said, and decided to be satisfied with that. Ron had a
bad habit of self-justification, and the Auror job hadn't helped
it, since so often he was dealing with people who were the
"bad guys" while he got to be on the side of "truth and
righteousness." Harry smiled, said, "Good night," and started
to close the Floo connection. He wanted to go over the book of
Orion's lineage with Gregor one more time and make absolutely sure
that he wasn't missing anything.

"Wait!" Ron flung
out a hand. "Don't you want to hear the story of Malfoy's wife
and why she accused him of using Dark Arts? Just to show you that I
wasn't making my suspicions up."

Harry didn't have to
hesitate. His curiosity was overwhelming, but he wanted Malfoy to
tell him, if he ever chose to. Trying to learn about the story now,
from Ron or newspapers, would feel too much like sneaking around
behind his back.

"No," Harry said,
and had to smile again at the expression that took over Ron's face.

"But it's an
interesting story," Ron said, leaning forwards.

"I'm sure. I have
work to do. And so do you," Harry added, because leaning back had
brought into view the enormous teetering pile of paperwork on the
desk in Ron's study. "Let's spend the evening doing that."

Sounding baffled, Ron
told him good night. Harry stood up, shaking his head, and went to
fetch Gregor where he curled on a heated cushion. Gregor yawned and
twined up Harry's arm with good grace; he enjoyed the special trips
to Harry's home, since he was the only snake who ever visited it.

Before we begin, he
said, brushing the scales around his neck against Harry's cheek,
you should know that I am perfectly right and that I would have
noticed if anything was profoundly wrong with Orion.

I accept that as
true, Harry said solemnly, and Gregor curled his body into the
first messy rune on the table with some delight.

*

Harry had expected
Scorpius Malfoy to look like his father. He had not expected him—even
knowing that he was eight years old, Rose's age—to be so boyish.

The moment Malfoy
escorted him into Harry's shop, keeping a light pressure on his
shoulder so that he wouldn't wander off, Scorpius tilted his head
back, stared at the cages, let his eyes grow wide, and blurted, "This
is wonderful!"

Harry smiled in spite
of himself. He had been prepared to act cool and distant if that was
what Malfoy wanted, but coolness and distance couldn't endure
around Scorpius. Harry found himself feeling confident, suddenly,
that Scorpius had had a very different childhood from the one his
father had—and also that Lucius hadn't had much part in raising
him.

Scorpius spun in
circles, his jaw hanging on his chest as he mumbled the names of the
animals in the cages. "Mice, rats, dragonflies, scorpions!"
He would have bounced over to the scorpion cage, but his father's
hand on his shoulder lightly restrained him. Scorpius gave an
uncontrolled wriggle of delight and turned to Harry. "Please, Mr.
Potter, can I look at them? Can I, can I?"

"All right," Harry
said, ignoring Malfoy's shocked glare. He'd had the scorpions'
stingers removed so that they couldn't attack his snakes. "But
there's someone who's been waiting to meet you, first." He
turned and called into the back of the shop in Parseltongue, Orion,
I think you'll find this interesting.

Orion slithered out.
He was a polite snake, even an obedient one; that wasn't one
of the problems Harry had ever had with him. Harry had thought inbred
courtesy was a good thing when his companion would be a Malfoy,
though on seeing Scorpius he wondered if it was absolutely necessary
after all.

But then Orion lifted
his head, and Scorpius's face became transfixed with joy, and
everything changed.

Orion shot forwards
like a little brother who'd seen the big brother he loved come in
through the door. He coiled up Scorpius's leg and, from there,
easily lifted his head so that it was level with Scorpius's face.
Harry heard Malfoy catch his breath, and thought he understood. It
was easy to underestimate Orion's size when you were looking at him
from a distance rather than in contrast to someone or something else.

"Hello," Orion
said. "You're the one I was waiting for. Everyone else kept
urging me to talk, but they didn't understand. I only talk when I
have something to say and someone to say it to." He laid his jaw
along Scorpius's face.

"You can always talk
to me," Scorpius said, his eyes so wide that Harry thought they
would fall out of his head. "I promise. I might not have
interesting things to say, but there's plenty." He laid
one hand gingerly on the dome of Orion's skull, as if he didn't
know whether he was supposed to touch him there.

"Good," Orion
said. "I have a lot of silence to make up for." He nudged his
head hard against Scorpius's fingers. "And I don't appreciate
people with limp hands. You have a lot of petting to make up for."

Scorpius laughed and
began scratching Orion. Harry closed his eyes, partially to give them
privacy and partially in relief. His experiment really had worked
this time.

Malfoy stepped up
beside him and cleared his throat. Harry knew him without looking. He
turned his head and smiled.

Malfoy held out a
large bag of Galleons. "As we agreed upon," he said.

Harry nodded and
accepted them, then glanced over Malfoy's shoulder. Scorpius and
Orion were completely involved in each other and didn't seem as if
they would notice the ceiling collapsing on them. Harry turned back
to Malfoy. "Would you answer a question for me, please?"

"Astoria divorced me
because I wasn't raising Scorpius in a way she thought was right,"
Malfoy said at once. His voice was calm and flat, though Harry could
hear the echoes of bitterness in it. "I let him have freedom, and
make mistakes, and I didn't insist that he learn more manners than
children usually have. On the other hand, exposing a family quarrel
like that to the press was also against Astoria's principles, and
so she made up the story about Dark Arts."

Harry let out a quiet
breath. "That wasn't the question I was going to ask," he said,
"though I'm glad you trusted me enough to tell me. I didn't
want to hear about it from anyone else." He continued, because he
didn't know what the fragile surprise on Malfoy's face would turn
into. "I want to know what that sound like snakes singing when
you're very still is. If you don't mind telling me. Um."

Malfoy spent a few
moments pondering in silence. Harry waited and tried his best not to
feel awkward. It would have been stupid to avoid asking the question
altogether, the same way it would have been stupid to pretend Malfoy
wasn't blind. At the very least, he could apologize if he offended
Malfoy, and Malfoy didn't have to tell him.

Then Malfoy smiled,
and Harry felt as if light had poured into the room.

"You are the first
one to notice it on such short exposure," Malfoy whispered. "Even
Astoria didn't notice it until after we were married. It's the
device that lets me—compensate." His mouth tightened, and Harry
bowed his head, understanding then how difficult it must be for him
to talk about. "It sends out short, high pulses of sound, and
bounces the echoes back to me, telling me the size, shape, and
direction of objects. It also tells me some more general details,
such as how much magic they shed. The bones of my skull had to be
altered to interpret the sounds. But though it is not like having
eyes, it does aid me in navigating the world."

"I never would have
thought of that," Harry said, delighted the way he was when he
discovered a new breed of snake.

Malfoy tilted his head
so that his hair fell in his eyes. "And you are not disgusted?
Others have been."

"Are you disgusted
by Parseltongue?" Harry asked.

"But that was
inborn."

"It's still a part
of me that other people don't have and don't know what it's
like to have," Harry said. "I'm not saying it's the
same as your magic—that would be presumptuous. I'm not blind, and
I don't know exactly what it's like for you. But that question is
the same one I have to ask people who are using the shop for the
first time."

Malfoy said nothing.
Then he whispered, "The device tells me general details, but not
specifics. Will you let me touch your face?"

"Of course," Harry
said. He hoped that Malfoy could hear him, because his throat was so
choked he didn't know if the words had got out.

Malfoy reached out and
trailed his fingers gently down Harry's face, along the corners of
his eyes. He lingered in the curve of Harry's cheek and in the dip
under his nose, then used both hands at once, apparently because he
wanted to feel both sides of Harry's mouth. Harry stood still,
tingles racing over his skin.

When Malfoy reached
Harry's chin, he cupped it and said, "I think I would like to see
you again, though I no longer have the excuse of Scorpius and Orion
to come here."

Harry nodded. He was
tempted to make the joke that Orion would always need care and
feeding, but that might anger Malfoy by seeming as if he was trying
to distance himself. Harry didn't really know all that much about
Malfoy, he realized suddenly, despite the things he'd just learned
and the comfort he'd come to feel around him during his visits.

"Good." Malfoy
took his hand away then and turned his back on Harry, calling to
Scorpius. Harry watched him preparing to leave with a sense of deep
contentment, tinged with uncertainty and anticipation.

He didn't know all
that much about Malfoy, true, and who knew if this fledgling
attraction would ever work out? Who knew if Harry could even strike
the balance between sympathy for Malfoy and pity that would enrage
him (and rightly so)? He knew so little. He had to learn.

But he was confident
he could learn. He wouldn't lean back on a static certainty
and brood there.

And that meant, right
now, that he had enough for contentment.

End.

The author would like to thank you for your continued support. Your review has been posted.